The life and poetry of William Butler Yeats – quiz

A hundred and fifty years after the birth of Ireland's Bard, the influence of WB Yeats is deeper than ever. But how much do you know about the Nobel laureate's life and work?
  
  


  1. What does WB Yeats have in common with the Marquis de Sade, Walt Whitman, Harriet Beecher Stowe and Allen Ginsberg?

    1. He published his first book before he turned 20

    2. His sex life was revolutionised mid-life by a medical breakthrough

    3. He was a Gemini

    4. He was accused of being responsible for a war or revolution

  2. How many women did Yeats propose to in 1916?

    1. 0

    2. 1

    3. 2

    4. 3

  3. Yeats is often hailed as being one of the driving forces behind the Irish literary revival, but how many times did he try and fail to learn Irish?

    1. Just once

    2. 7

    3. 13

    4. He never tried

  4. Yeats's body was moved nine years after his death. Where was he originally buried?

    1. Dublin, Ireland

    2. Roquebrune, France

    3. London, England

    4. New York, USA

  5. To whom did Yeats dedicate his verse play, The Countess Cathleen

    1. His friends Eva Gore-Booth and Constance Markiewicz

    2. His wife, Georgie Hyde-Lees

    3. His mother

    4. Maud Gonne

  6. Which poem, and collection, took its name from the ancestral home of his friend Lady Gregory

    1. To a Squirrel at Kyle-na-gno

    2. The Fiddler of Dooney

    3. Wilde Swans at Coole

    4. Ganders on the Liffey

  7. Who succumbed to 'a lonely impulse of delight' in a 1918 poem

    1. An Irish airman

    2. Queen Maev

    3. Oisin

    4. Éamon de Valera

  8. Who borrowed 'golden apples of the sun' the from last line of The Song of the Wandering Aengus by Yeats for a book title?

    1. Ray Bradbury

    2. John Irving

    3. Frank Herbert

    4. HE Bates

  9. Who avoided Yeats, according to his biographer, and saw him as 'pompous and posturing, fatuously slobbering over all the wrong aspects of Ireland and Irish society'?

    1. Joyce O'Casey

    2. Samuel Beckett

    3. Flann O'Brien

    4. Edward Martyn

  10. Which comic book character takes her name from one of Yeats' poems?

    1. Catwoman

    2. Crazy Jane

    3. Harley Quinn

    4. Poison Ivy

  11. Who sang 'so I meet you at the cemetery gates / Keats and Yeats are on your side / while Wilde is on mine'?

    1. Rufus Wainwright

    2. Anthony Hegarty

    3. Kate Tempest

    4. Morrissey

Solutions

1:C, 2:D, 3:C, 4:B, 5:D, 6:C, 7:A, 8:A, 9:B, 10:B, 11:D

Scores

  1. 4 and above.

    Woah, that was mere anarchy! The centre cannot hold, but surely some revelation is at hand. Perhaps you should try again ...

  2. 7 and above.

    You're not full of passionate intensity, but maybe you could lose a little conviction ... Want to try again?

  3. 10 and above.

    You may be in your shining days, the crowd busy with your praise, but don't be unkind or proud ...

 

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